SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Part1

For the past decade the world has witnessed drastic technological changes, resulting to intensive utilization of Social media sites which came to be one of the powerful tools for business. As the Word itself “Social Media” the Social character is a must. For it to be social it must contain 5 primary elements thus, Sharable, engageable, Entertain, innovative and Relative. Millions of people use social media to communicate, create networks, share ideas, innovate, and entertain. Social media has become part of our lives, with the facilitation of various digital devices such as Mobile phones, Portable computers and Tablets social media has been inevitable.

According to Global WebIndex in 2020, more than 4.5 billion people are using the internet and 3.8 billion people are on social media globally, In Social Medias Only, people spend an average of 2.4 hours a day which is an increase of 60% from 2012 statistics. In Africa, people spend 3 hours and 10 minutes on social media. Comparing to 2017 data, on every second approximately 11 people join social media platforms for the first time. Theoretically, in a marketing perspective, there are 3.8 billion customers who spend an average time of 2.4 hours a day in the market either we decide to serve them or not. Marketers see this as an opportunity to create links that will bridge customers and business together with minimal physical contact. But before we get excited about that massive number, as a business you make decisions from the information you have, you absorb data from what is prevailing in the market. There comes the importance of research, for a small business you don’t necessarily need an exhaustive research, for a start try to know your customers, the ones you intend to serve, segmentation will help you serve customers who are in need of you, customers who you have the capacity to handle them.

For your business to be of success in Digital Marketing, the entry point is very important, after you’ve identified your customers in detail and how to serve them, next is to choose the Digital platform to operate on. This can be a tricky and exhaustive stage, most of businesses decide to appear on all common platforms, without considering the necessary parameters. Causing difficulties in management of the platforms. Deciding on which platform to use first will determine which strategy is suitable aligning with the platform and the goals you desire to achieve. There are numerous social media platforms from Social Networking (Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+), Instant Messaging (Whatsapp, WeChat) Microblogging (Twitter, Tumblr), Photo/Video Sharing (Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest) to Video blogging (YouTube, Periscope). Henceforth, before you choose a platform make sure the platform is familiar to you and most importantly to your customers, because the business is not for you but your customers. Find out what they want and offer it to them the way they want it!